"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
...

"RCE" wrote in message
...

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
. ..

Bush is in a position to do nothing except sacrifice more lives of US
troops. And your comparison of Bush to Churchill is odious and
insulting. Churchill, though flawed, was a great leader and an
inspiration. Bush is a drunken, incompetent buffoon.


Speaking of falling off the wagon ....

I told all of you that it would only take time for his regression.

This was all too predictable

Chuck,

You are *almost* right on the Brits partitioning scheme. If you look at
some older maps of the area you can see that the borders were drawn in
such a way as to split the various groups and lump them together.

Then a local leader was installed up to hold the mess together. The
local divisions insured that said leader would be kept busy and never
present much of a threat.

The divide and conquer method of rule is much older than the British
Empire but they used it very skillfully.

Mark Browne

Noyb,

Yes, it would bother some of us.

I know this conflict is not about the oil and all that. You have
certainly told everybody that would listen that this is so.

Even so...

The Kurdish region of Turkey happens to result in major oil income for
them. In know they say is all about protecting the Turkmen people, but
they *would* miss the revenues. I suspect conflict and the resulting
shut down of oil production.

On the Iran side, the Shia in Iraq would end up Iranian. During the
process it is most likely that the flow of Iraqi oil would stop for a
while, leading to a reduction of oil supplies.

It is true that the USA gets most of its oil from places like Venezuela
so might be temping to think that it would not matter very much. The
fly in this ointment is that oil is a fungible resource - if a certain
stream dries up it can be purchased from somebody else. Just imagine
how amused the Venezuelan leader would be if he had a ready buyer so he
could send his oil ships to a different destination instead of the USA?

We all know that with you chosen profession you won't mind paying four
or five bucks a gallon but it might chafe some of us.

Mark Browne

wrote in message
ups.com...
Noyb,

Yes, it would bother some of us.

I know this conflict is not about the oil and all that. You have
certainly told everybody that would listen that this is so.


I've told everybody that it *is* about the oil...among other things. You
haven't been paying attention.



Even so...

The Kurdish region of Turkey happens to result in major oil income for
them. In know they say is all about protecting the Turkmen people, but
they *would* miss the revenues. I suspect conflict and the resulting
shut down of oil production.

On the Iran side, the Shia in Iraq would end up Iranian. During the
process it is most likely that the flow of Iraqi oil would stop for a
while, leading to a reduction of oil supplies.

It is true that the USA gets most of its oil from places like Venezuela
so might be temping to think that it would not matter very much.

It would matter a lot. Japan, for instance, gets 70% of its oil from the
region. If their supply was interrupted, they'd be force to go out on the
open market and buy elsewhere...which would drive the price up.


The
fly in this ointment is that oil is a fungible resource - if a certain
stream dries up it can be purchased from somebody else. Just imagine
how amused the Venezuelan leader would be if he had a ready buyer so he
could send his oil ships to a different destination instead of the USA?

He's working towards that very goal right now.



We all know that with you chosen profession you won't mind paying four
or five bucks a gallon but it might chafe some of us.

Most of our allies in Europe would be thrilled to pay only $4 or $5 per
gallon.